After Twilight
by Velopc
Summary: With the Defeat of Ganondorf and the distruction of the mirror of Twilight, peace seams to have returned to Hyrule. But after reports of an enamy nation attacking Hyrule when the Hylian army his scattered, peace is the last thing on everyone's minds. Zelda has to figure out how to rebuild Hyrule, and Link must struggle with the thought of killing other humans instead of monsters.


Everything was a disaster. Or at least that's what it felt like. The castle had to be rebuilt, the kingdom was still recovering from the after effects of being controlled by a different dimension, and the army was disorganized. With the threat of another kingdom just over the border, this was not a position that Zelda wanted to be in. Ever since the twilight realm had been handed back over to Minda, and the mirror of twilight had been destroyed, peace had supposedly been restored to the kingdom of Hyrule. Supposedly. Zelda definitely knew that peaceful was pretty much at the bottom of the list of things that Hyrule was right now. Zelda sighed and leaned back in her chair. If only the work that needed to be done could be spread out over a longer span of time, she probably wouldn't be so stressed.

A soft knock at the door interrupted her thoughts, and she turned to see the new general standing at the door. Zelda didn't know exactly what to expect from him. Sutton had been the best man for the job. He was the most skilled tactician Hyrule had to offer, and definitely one of the best fighters, but he was young, and a little too prideful for Zelda's liking. She waved him to a seat that was across from her desk.

"A little too overwhelmed your highness?"

"No general Sutton, I'm not at all overwhelmed. It's just the fact that you haven't completing your new duties as the general that's bugging me."

Sutton cringed a little in his chair. He had hoped that this meeting would be better than most of the meetings he had heard about. Everyone knew that the princess was very professional, and blunt about everything, but he had hoped that she wouldn't actually be that way. Apparently he was wrong. Well their was almost no point in being polite anymore.

"So what exactly did you request my presence for? If I'm going to be chewed out can we do it after I've had a drink or two?"

"No general, you are not here to be chewed out, you are here so that I can help redirect your attention onto a matter that has become a huge problem for this kingdom."

"Which is?"

Zelda pushed a stack of papers across the desk. General Sutton quickly scanned the first one, but didn't look surprised.

"So you called me in here because their are reports that strange people are raiding some of our villages next to the boarders of the desert? Sorry your highness, but it looks like the Gerduo's are at it again. Apparently they didn't get the message that we killed their king."

Zelda had to force herself not to slap the man. He had missed the most important details, and because of that he thought that she was overreacting. She mentally calmed herself and continued.

"You missed the section at the bottom about what was found at one of the villages that was raided."

General Sutton looked down again, a little bit of embarrassment showing on his face. This time he read over the report a little more carefully. After a few minutes of silence he nodded and put the report back on the desk.

"So one of our villagers was smart enough to fight back and their was a dead body of our mysterious raiders found when our troops got their."

"Yes precisely. And did you happen to notice what was so particular about the mans armor?"

General Sutton studied the paper a little more before answering again.

"His armor is marked with symbols from the kingdom of Tarkir. But since these are raiders, we cannot assume that the Tarkir kingdom is overstepping their bounds. More than likely they have raided Tarkir as well, and they are using their armor because it's better than theirs."

Zelda leaned forward a little and stared down the general, waiting to see if he would catch on to what he had to do. Obviously he didn't because after thirty seconds of her stare down, he hadn't spoken up. As a matter of fact it seamed as if he was actually enjoying being stared down by her.

"General all these reports that I have here all have the same circumstances that that report described in at least half a dozen different villages that border the desert."

General Sutton sat back in his chair and stroked his chin. As smart as he was he was surprised that the princess had been able to figure this all out before he had. He could see what was coming and he didn't like it.

"Look your highness, we don't know if it's the Tarkir army for sure, and we don't have enough troops to station a border guard alongside the desert."

"I know general, I don't want a border guard. I only want you to do two things. I want you to send out a scouting patrol, and I want you to gather the remains of our army and prepare them for the worst. And I want you to do it in that order. Nose are your orders general, you're dismissed."

General Sutton got up and left, only pausing for a moment to glance back and see that Zelda was once again busy with her work. He shook himself mentally as he walked down the hall. Maybe this general business was a little more than he had expected. But it didn't matter, he knew what he could do.

...

It had been three months since the destruction of the mirror of twilight, and Link was enjoying every moment of it. He was back in Ordon village with his friends, and he no longer had to worry about monsters and demons trying to attack his friends. And best of all he was done traveling such far distances that would wear him down forever. To put it simply, he was enjoying life. He was back to working his old job, but he still never kept his sword too far away. He had already been attacked once, since some people thought that if they were able to beat him, they were better than the, "chosen hero." Whatever. At this point he wasn't to worried about what would happen, although it did bother him to kill other people instead of monsters. He had managed to avoid killing his attackers, but if things kept up, it might happen. Link pushed that thought from his mind. Nothing bad would happen, so he shouldn't brood upon his dark thoughts.

He finished fixing the fence and looked up, only to see the glint of armor down in the town. He frowned and started running towards the town, slinging his sword over his shoulder as he went.

...

"Mayer Bo, I'm not asking for permission. As the general of the royal army I'm am coming here I search of help. Now if you would be so kind as to tell me where I can find Link so I can ask him for help."

Mayer Bo wasn't really in the mood to argue with man, especially since he had more than enough troops with him to whip out their entire village.

"Alright, you can usually find Link up on our goat farm. He works there most days. But I wouldn't try to fight him if your thinking that. He can beat the Gorons at sumo wrestling, so yeah he's a pretty tough kid."

General Sutton walked past the Mayer, not caring for the last comment. He knew Link was strong, how else could he of defeated Ganondorf? General Sutton started to head up the road when he saw Link running down.

"Well, speak of the devil, their he is."

Link kept running straight past general Sutton, and stopped in front of Mayer Bo.

"Bo, what's going on here?"

"You should probably talk to the guy who's looking pretty ticked off right now, he knows more than I do about this situation."

Link turned and quickly found the man that looked ticked off. For some reason he also seamed to be the man in charge of everything, although he didn't look much older than Link.

"Alright, what's going on?"

Link ducked a blow that came from one of the nearby soldiers. Apparently he had been to rude when addressing their commander. Apparently he was the commander because he stepped forward and smashed the back of the attacking soldiers helmet with the butt of his sword.

"My apologies Link, obviously he didn't understand the fact that we weren't here to hurt you, but I do appreciate the fact that he is a rather loyal soldier."

Link was still not entirely sure what was going on but he would still go along with it, for now.

"So once again, what's this all about?"

"Well, first off I'm general Sutton..."

"No."

General Sutton stopped for a second. Had he just said no before he could even explain what was going on? Sutton tried to keep his cool.

"I haven't even finished what I was going to say."

"It doesn't matter anyway general. I'm not going to be the military's 'secret weapon', or 'pet project' or whatever else you want to call it. I was dragged around way to much by the rulers of two different nations to ever want to be a part of all the crap that goes on within the political systems. So no, I'm not in the mood to help you. And you can't pull rank on me because princess Zelda made sure the whole kingdom knew that the only person that outranked me in political status was her."

Sutton was trying his best not to attack Link right then and there. Of course he had expected some sort of push back, but he hadn't expected Link to be this rude.

"Let me try this again. We need your help."

Link paused at that. He hadn't expected anyone to come to him for help, especially someone from the castle.

"So what kind of help do you need?"

Sutton smiled to himself. Now he was getting somewhere with all of this.

"We are having problems with people raiding our villages that border the dessert. We suspect that it is the kingdom of Tarkir, but we don't know for sure. What I am asking of you is that you scout out the dessert and see if you can truly find out who's behind all of this, while I prepare the army in case we have a full scale invasion on our hands."

Link was taken aback a little. He knew about the bordering kingdoms, but he didn't expect any of them to attack. He glanced at Sutton, only to see the man looking at him impatiently. He knew that as the hero of Hyrule he needed to do everything in his power to protect the kingdom, but he would have to make a quick detour first.

"Alright I'll help you, but you'll have to excuse me, because I'm not leaving immediately."

Sutton looked rather annoyed at that, but Link took off running towards his house before Sutton could say anything. He quickly scaled the ladder and went to his upper room, and found all his tools. Well most people would call them weapons, but he just thought of them as tools since they were used to help him solve the many puzzles from his last adventure. He ran outside his house and blew on the horse charm. It only took a few seconds for Epona to come around the corner, and a few more minutes for Link to saddle her up. He jumped on her and left, leaving his village behind before he could even say goodby to anyone.

...

Another day and Zelda once again found herself sitting behind a desk, filling out more paperwork than any living creature should ever attempt, even if they were gifted with the triforce of wisdom. Someone knocked at the door, much louder than normal. Odd, she didn't recall setting up a meeting with anyone.

"I thought their was a standing order that no one was to disturb me today."

Much to her annoyance whoever was standing outside the door pushed it open and walked in, as if they hadn't heard her.

"That's odd, I thought you said I could come by whenever."

Zelda looked up and was surprised to see Link standing in the doorway. What on earth was he doing here?

"What are you doing here?"

Zelda mentally slapped herself. Sh hadn't meant to sound that ride about it, but no matter the damage was already done. Now it was time to see if she could pick up the pieces.

"Wow princess, you'd think you'd be happier to see the guy who saved your kingdom. No matter, I just have a quick question to ask and then I'll be out of your way for the foreseeable future."

Zelda sighed. Hopefully their whole discussion did not follow the same pattern as the last thirty seconds.

"So what question is it that you have to ask?"

Link sat down across the desk from Zelda. Zelda noticed that he didn't have his sword or shield on him, but he did still have his small pouch that held all his other weapons. It was comforting to know that he wasn't defenseless, but it was also a little scary at the same time.

"So I've been told about a neighboring kingdom that is quite possibly attacking some of our villages that boarder the dessert. Are these rumors true?"

"Yes, those rumors are true. Why did you want to know?"

"Because I'm going to scout it out for you. That way that Sutton guy has time to pull the army together, and hopefully make it so they're not a bunch of cowards anymore."

At that Link stood up and left. He shut the door as he left the room, and left Zelda to figure out what was going on. He walked down the hall ignoring everyone and quickly headed to the stables. Another trip to the dessert, except this time he wouldn't be fighting undead dragons.


End file.
